Declension

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Inflection of nouns, pronouns, numerals, adjectives, and articles according to number, gender, and/or case

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Grammatical features
Related to nouns
Animacy Case Dative construction Dative shift Quirky subject Classifier Construct state Countability Count noun Mass noun Collective noun Definiteness Gender Genitive construction Possession Suffixaufnahme (case stacking) Noun class Number Singular Plural Dual Trial, etc. Singulative-Collective-Plurative Specificity Universal grinder
Related to verbs
Associated motion Clusivity Conjugation Evidentiality Modality Person Telicity Tense–aspect–mood Grammatical aspect Lexical aspect (Aktionsart) Mood Tense Voice
General features
Affect Boundedness Comparison (degree) Pluractionality (verbal number) Honorifics (politeness) Polarity Reciprocity Reflexive pronoun Reflexive verb
Syntax relationships
Argument Transitivity Valency Adjunct Complement Branching Serial verb construction Traditional grammar Indirect object Object Predicate Subject
Semantics
Contrast Mirativity Thematic relation Agent Patient Topic and Comment Focus Volition Veridicality
Phenomena
Agreement Polypersonal agreement Declension Empty category Incorporation Inflection Markedness
v t e

In linguistics, declension is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. The inflectional change of verbs is called conjugation.

Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and articles to indicate number (e.g. singular, dual, plural), case (e.g. nominative case, accusative case, genitive case, dative case), gender (e.g. masculine, neuter, feminine), and a number of other grammatical categories.

Declension occurs in many of the world's languages. Declension is an important aspect of language families like American (such as Quechuan), Indo-European (German, Slavic, Sanskrit, Latin), Bantu (Zulu, Kikuyu), Semitic (Modern Standard Arabic), Finno-Ugric (Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian), Turkic (Turkish).

Old English was an inflectional language, but largely abandoned inflectional changes as it evolved into Modern English. Though traditionally classified as synthetic, Modern English has moved towards an analytic language.

Contents

• 1 History
• 2 Modern English
• 3 Latin
• 4 Hindi
  • 4.1 Nouns
  • 4.2 Pronouns
  • 4.3 Postpositions
• 5 Sanskrit
• 6 See also
  • 6.1 Declension in specific languages
    • 6.1.1 Latin and Greek
  • 6.2 Related topics
• 7 References
• 8 External links

History[edit]

It is agreed that Ancient Greeks had a "vague" idea of the forms of a noun in their language. A fragment of Anacreon seems to confirm this idea. Nevertheless, it cannot be concluded that the Ancient Greeks actually knew what the cases were. The Stoics developed many basic notions that today are the rudiments of linguistics. The idea of grammatical cases is also traced back to the Stoics, but it's still not completely clear what the Stoics exactly meant with their notion of cases.^[1][2]

Modern English[edit]

Further information: Old English grammar § Nouns

In Modern English, the system of declensions is so simple compared to some other languages that the term declension is rarely used. Most nouns in English have distinct singular and plural forms and have distinct plain and possessive forms. Plurality is most commonly shown by the affix -s (or -es), whereas possession is always shown by the clitic -'s (or by just the apostrophe for most plural forms ending in s) attached to the noun. Consider, for example, the forms of the noun girl:

	Singular	Plural
Plain	girl	girls
Possessive	girl's	girls'

Most speakers pronounce all of the forms other than the singular plain form (girl) exactly the same (though the elided possessive-indicating s of the plural possessive may be realised as [z] in some speakers' pronunciations, being separated from the plural-indicating s normally by a central vowel such as [ɨ̞]). By contrast, a few nouns are slightly more complex in their forms. For example:

	Singular	Plural
Plain	man	men
Possessive	man's	men's

In that example, all four forms are pronounced distinctly.

There can be other derivations from nouns that are not usually considered declensions. For example, the proper noun Britain has the associated descriptive adjective British and the demonym Briton. Though these words are clearly related and are generally considered cognates, they are not specifically treated as forms of the same word and thus not declensions.

Pronouns in English have even more complex declensions. For example:

	Singular	Plural
Subjective	I	we
Objective	me	us
Dependent possessive	my	our
Independent possessive	mine	ours

Whereas nouns do not distinguish between the subjective (nominative) and objective (oblique) cases, some pronouns do; that is, they decline to reflect their relationship to a verb or preposition, or case. Consider the difference between he (subjective) and him (objective), as in "He saw it" and "It saw him"; similarly, consider who, which is subjective, and the objective whom (although it is increasingly common to use who for both).

The one situation where gender is still clearly part of the English language is in the pronouns for the third person singular. Consider the following:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter (non-person)	Neuter (person)
Subjective	he	she	it	they
Objective	him	her		them
Dependent possessive	his	her	its	their
Independent possessive		hers		theirs

The distinguishing of neuter for persons and non-persons is peculiar to English. This has existed since the 14th century.^[3][4] However, the use of the so-called singular they is often restricted to specific contexts, depending on the dialect or the speaker. It is most typically used to refer to a single person of unknown gender (e.g., "someone left their jacket behind") or a hypothetical person where gender is insignificant (e.g., "If someone wants to, then they should"). Its use has expanded in recent years due to increasing social recognition of persons who do not identify themselves as male or female.^[5] Note that the singular they still uses plural verb forms, reflecting its origins.

For nouns, in general, gender is not declined in Modern English, or at best one could argue there are isolated situations certain nouns may be modified to reflect gender, though not in a systematic fashion. Loan words from other languages, particularly Latin and the Romance languages, often preserve their gender-specific forms in English, e.g. alumnus (masculine singular) and alumna (feminine singular). Similarly, names borrowed from other languages show comparable distinctions: Andrew and Andrea, Paul and Paula, etc. Additionally, suffixes such as -ess, -ette, and -er are sometimes applied to create overtly gendered versions of nouns, with marking for feminine being much more common than marking for masculine. Many nouns can actually function as members of two genders or even all three, and the gender classes of English nouns are usually determined by their agreement with pronouns, rather than marking on the nouns themselves.

Most adjectives are not declined. However, when used as nouns rather than adjectives, they do decline (e.g., "I'll take the reds", meaning "I'll take the red ones" or as shorthand for "I'll take the red wines"). Also, the demonstrative determiners this and that are declined for number, as these and those. Some adjectives borrowed from other languages are, or can be, declined for gender, at least in writing: blond (male) and blonde (female). Adjectives are not declined for case in Modern English, though they were in Old English. The article is never regarded as declined in Modern English, although formally, the words that and possibly she correspond to forms of the predecessor of the (sē m., þæt n., sēo f.) as it was declined in Old English.

Latin[edit]

Main articles: Latin declension and Latin syntax

Just as verbs in Latin are conjugated to indicate grammatical information, Latin nouns and adjectives that modify them are declined to signal their roles in sentences. There are five important cases for Latin nouns: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative. Since the vocative case usually takes the same form as the nominative, it is seldom spelt out in grammar books.^{[dubious – discuss]} Yet another case, the locative, is limited to a small number of words.

The usual basic functions of these cases are as follows:

• Nominative case indicates the subject.
• Genitive case indicates possession and can be translated with 'of'.
• Dative case marks the indirect object and can be translated with 'to' or 'for'.
• Accusative case marks the direct object.
• Ablative case is used to modify verbs and can be translated as 'by', 'with', 'from', etc.
• Vocative case is used to address a person or thing.

The genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative also have important functions to indicate the object of a preposition.

Given below is the declension paradigm of Latin puer 'boy' and puella 'girl':

Case	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	puer	puerī	puella	puellae
Genitive	puerī	puerōrum	puellae	puellārum
Dative	puerō	puerīs	puellae	puellīs
Accusative	puerum	puerōs	puellam	puellās
Ablative	puerō	puerīs	puellā	puellīs
Vocative	puer	puerī	puella	puellae

From the provided examples we can see how cases work:

• liber puerī → the book of the boy (puerī boy=genitive)
• puer puellae rosam dat → the boy gives the girl a rose (puer boy=nominative; puellae girl=dative; rosam rose=accusative; dat give=third person singular present)

Hindi[edit]

Hindi has three noun cases (nominative, oblique, and vocative)^[6][7]and five pronoun cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, and oblique). The oblique case in pronouns has three subdivisions: Regular, Ergative, and Genitive. There are eight case-marking postpositions in Hindi and out of those eight the ones which end in the vowel -ā (the semblative and the genitive postpositions) also decline according to number, gender, and case.^[8][9]

Nouns[edit]

All the case declension paradigms for nouns are shown below:

Case	Masculine								Feminine
	ending in -ā		ending in -i/ī		ending in -u/ū		ending in -ø		ending in -i/ī		ending in -ā		ending in -ø
	Boy		Man		Knife		Tree		Girl		Mother		Train
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	लड़का laɽkā	लड़के laɽke	आदमी ādmī	आदमी ādmī	चाकू chakū	चाकू chakū	पेड़ peɽ	पेड़ peɽ	लड़की laɽkī	लड़कियाँ laɽkiyā̃	माता mātā	माताएँ mātāẽ	ट्रेन ʈren	ट्रेनें ʈrenẽ
Oblique	लड़के laɽke	लड़कों laɽkõ		आदमियों ādmiyõ		चाकुओं chākuõ		पेड़ों peɽõ		लड़कियों laɽkiyõ		माताओं mātāõ		ट्रेनों ʈrenõ
Vocative		लड़को laɽko		आदमियो ādmiyo		चाकुओ chākuo		पेड़ो peɽo		लड़कियो laɽkiyo		माताओ mātāo		ट्रेनो ʈreno

Note: -ø represents any word-ending other than the ones mentioned in the paradigms above.

Pronouns[edit]

Case		Personal					Demonstrative						Relative			Interrogative
		1st person		2nd person			3rd person
		Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural		Proximal			Non-proximal			Singular	Plural	Formal	Singular	Plural	Formal
				Intimate	Familiar	Formal	Singular	Plural	Formal	Singular	Plural	Formal
Nominative		मैं mɛ̃	हम ham	तू tū	तुम tum	आप āp	यह yah	ये ye		वह vah	वे ve		जो jo			कौन, क्या kaun, kyā
							ये ye			वो vo
Dative		मुझे mujhe	हमें hamẽ	तुझे tujhe	तुम्हें tumhẽ	—	इसे ise	इन्हें inhẽ		उसे use	उन्हें unhẽ		जिसे jise	जिन्हें jinhẽ		किसे kise	किन्हें kinhẽ
Accusative
Genitive		मेरा merā	हमारा hamārā	तेरा terā	तुम्हारा tumhārā	—	—	—		—	—		—	—		—	—
Oblique	Regular	मुझ mujh	हम ham	तुझ tujh	तुम tum	आप āp	इस is	इन in		उस us	उन un		जिस jis	जिन jin		किस kis	किन kin
	Ergative	मैं mãĩ		तू tū				इन्हों inhõ			उन्हों unhõ			जिन्हों jinhõ			किन्हों kinhõ
	Genitive	मेरे mere	हमारे hamāre	तेरे tere	तुम्हारे tumhāre	—	—	—		—	—		—	—		—	—

Postpositions[edit]

The case-marking postpositions of Hindi are mentioned in the table below on the left, and the declensions of the genitive and semblative postpositions are on the right:

Case-markers Case Case Marker Example English Equivalent Ergative ने ne लड़के ने laɽke ne the boy Accusative को ko लड़के को laɽke ko the boy Dative to the boy Instrumental से se लड़के से laɽke se with/using the boy Ablative from the boy Genitive का kā लड़के का laɽke kā boy's / of the boy Inessive में mẽ लड़के में laɽke mẽ in/inside the boy Adessive पे/पर pe/par लड़के पे laɽke pe on/at the boy Terminative तक tak लड़के तक laɽke tak (up) till the boy Semblative सा sā लड़के सा laɽke sā boy-ish, boy-esque

Case Genitive Postposition Semblative Postposition Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Singular Singular Plural Nominative का kā के ke की kī सा sā से se सी sī Oblique के ke से se

Example sentence using noun, pronoun, and postpositional declensions:

Hindi	कोई	बोला	कि	बड़े से	पेड़ों को	लड़के ने	लकड़ी की	कुल्हाड़ी से	धुप में	दो से	चार बजे तक	कुर्सी पे	खड़े होके	काटा।
Transliternation	koī	bolā	ki	baɽe se	peɽõ ko	laɽke ne	lakɽī kī	kulhāɽī se	dhūp mẽ	do se	chār tak	kursī pe	khaɽe hoke	kāʈā.
Meaning	someone	said	that	big	trees	boy	wood	axe	sun	two	four	chair	standing	cut.
Case/Function	nominative	perfective	conjunction	semblative	accusative	ergative	genitive	instrumental	inessive	ablative	terminative	adessive	conjunctive	perfective
Translation	"Someone said that a boy cut the big trees with a wooden axe in the sun from 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock by standing on a chair."

Sanskrit[edit]

Main article: Sanskrit nouns

Sanskrit, another Indo-European language, has eight cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, locative and instrumental.^[10] Some do not count vocative as a separate case, despite it having a distinctive ending in the singular, but consider it as a different use of the nominative.^[11]

Sanskrit grammatical cases have been analyzed extensively. The grammarian Pāṇini identified six semantic roles or karaka, which correspond closely to the eight cases:^[12]

• agent (kartṛ, related to the nominative)
• patient (karman, related to the accusative)
• means (karaṇa, related to the instrumental)
• recipient (sampradāna, related to the dative)
• source (apādāna, related to the ablative)
• relation (sambandha, related to genitive)
• locus (adhikaraṇa, related to the locative)
• address (sambodhana, related to the vocative)

For example, consider the following sentence:

vṛkṣ-āt	parṇ-aṁ	bhūm-au	patati
from the tree	a leaf	to the ground	falls

"a leaf falls from the tree to the ground"

Here leaf is the agent, tree is the source, and ground is the locus. The endings -aṁ, -at, -āu mark the cases associated with these meanings.

See also[edit]

Declension in specific languages[edit]

• Arabic ʾIʿrab
• Basque declension
• Czech declension
• Dutch declension system
• Finnish language noun cases
• German declension
• Greek declension
• Icelandic declension
• Irish declension
• Latin declension
• Latvian declension
• Lithuanian declension
• Middle English declension
• Polish declension
• Russian declension
• Slovak declension
• Slovene declension
• Ukrainian declension

Latin and Greek[edit]

• First declension
• Second declension
• Third declension

Related topics[edit]

• Grammatical conjugation
• Grammatical case
• Strong inflection
• Weak inflection

References[edit]

1. ^ Frede, Michael (1994). "The Stoic Notion of a Grammatical Case". Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. 39: 13–24. doi:10.1111/j.2041-5370.1994.tb00449.x. JSTOR 43646836.
2. ^ http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/linguaggio
3. ^ Fowler, H.W. (2015). Butterfield, Jeremy (ed.). Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press. p. 814. ISBN 978-0-19-966135-0.
4. ^ Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 494. ISBN 0-521-43146-8.
5. ^ Andrews, Travis M. (March 28, 2017). "The singular, gender-neutral 'they' added to the Associated Press Stylebook". Washington Post.
6. ^ "Hindi Noun Cases". hindilanguage.info. 2012-04-19. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
7. ^ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226198692_Ergative_Case-marking_in_Hindi
8. ^ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226198692_Ergative_Case-marking_in_Hindi
9. ^ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267724707_CASE_IN_HINDI
10. ^ James Clackson (2007) Indo-European linguistics: an introduction, p.90
11. ^ Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf (eds), Sanskrit Computational Linguistics: First and Second International Symposia Rocquencourt, France, October 29-31, 2007 and Providence, RI, USA, May 15-17, 2008, Revised Selected Papers, Volume 5402 of Lecture notes in artificial intelligence, Springer, 2009, ISBN 3-642-00154-8, pp. 64–68.
12. ^ Pieter Cornelis Verhagen, Handbook of oriental studies: India. A history of Sanskrit grammatical literature in Tibet, Volume 2, BRILL, 2001, ISBN 90-04-11882-9, p. 281.

External links[edit]

Look up declension in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• The Status of Morphological Case in the Icelandic Lexicon by Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson. Discussion of whether cases convey any inherent syntactic or semantic meaning.
• Optimal Case: The Distribution of Case in German and Icelandic by Dieter Wunderlich
• Lexicon of Linguistics: Declension
• Lexicon of Linguistics: Base, Stem, Root
• Lexicon of Linguistics: Defective Paradigm
• Lexicon of Linguistics: Strong Verb
• Lexicon of Linguistics: Inflection Phrase (IP), INFL, AGR, Tense
• Lexicon of Linguistics: Lexicalist Hypothesis
• classical Greek declension

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